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Constellate: Establishing the opportunity for Distributed Unit pooling in real-world 5G Radio Access Networks

  • Sri Pramodh Rachuri
  • , Anshul Gandhi
  • , Gueyoung Jung
  • , Shankaranarayanan Puzhavakath Narayanan
  • , Alex Zelezniak
  • Stony Brook University
  • AT&T

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

As the adoption of Virtualized Radio Access Networks (vRAN) is gaining momentum in 5 G networks, Mobility Network Operators are considering a Centralized RAN (CRAN) architecture that moves the baseband functions to a far-edge cloud in order to gain dimensioning flexibility, resiliency and improved RAN performance. However, there have been limited studies on the benefits of centralization in improving RAN compute utilization, especially in the context of pooling the compute-intensive Distributed Unit (DU) resources. In this paper, we present the first study on the benefits of pooling in improving DU server utilization. Using longitudinal traces from a real-world 5G network, we show that significant Capex and Opex gains of 84% and 9 4%, respectively, can be obtained through fine-grained pooling at a granularity of 1 second. We also present an affinitybased and dynamic pooling algorithm that can reduce the pooling overheads while still achieving significant pooling gains.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2025 IEEE 33rd International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, MASCOTS 2025
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
ISBN (Electronic)9798331557607
DOIs
StatePublished - 2025
Event33rd IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, MASCOTS 2025 - Paris, France
Duration: Oct 21 2025Oct 23 2025

Publication series

NameProceedings - IEEE Computer Society's Annual International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunications Systems, MASCOTS
ISSN (Print)1526-7539

Conference

Conference33rd IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, MASCOTS 2025
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityParis
Period10/21/2510/23/25

Keywords

  • 5G
  • DU pooling
  • RAN utilization
  • Virtualized RAN

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